CiiAP. XXVII. TO MALCOLM-PENTH. 459 



the Nagotna river, with low juugle on either side. At 

 Nagotna two sets of hamals were waiting for us, and we 

 started for Mhar, a distance of forty miles across the low 

 country of the Concan. The hamals or palkee-bearers belong 

 to the MJiar or Parwari caste, who are also watchmen, porters, 

 and guides, and are believed to be the aborigines of the 

 country. They are athletic men, with slender and remark- 

 ably symmetrical figures when young, always working in 

 gangs of twelve to each palkee, three at each end, and the 

 others relieving them at intervals. They carry the weight 

 with a skill which only a life-long practice could give, and go 

 over the ground at the rate of four miles an hour, at a sort 

 of trot. 



The country is generally well covered with rice-fields, now 

 in stubble ; and the numerous stacks of rice-straw, raised 

 five or six feet from the ground on stakes, formed the 

 principal feature of the landscape. A few miles beyond Mhar 

 the western ghauts rise abruptly from the plain of the 

 Concan, in two gigantic steps. The first step is ascended by 

 the steep corkscrew road of the Parr ghaut, and between its 

 summit and the foot of the Rartunda ghaut, which winds up 

 the second step, there is a level cultivated plateau. To the 

 left of the road, overlooking the Concan, there is a steep 

 conical hill, crowned by the famous robber fort of Pertaub- 

 ghur. Here, in 1659, Sevajee, the famous founder of 

 Mahratta power, assassinated Afzul Khan, the general of 

 the Mohammedan King of Beejapore's army, at an interview. 

 We could see the dark walls of the fort, with ruined build- 

 ings, and a tall tree rising behind them. The ascent of the 

 second ghaut brought us, almost immediately, into the hill 

 station of Mahabaleshwur. The view from our lodging 

 embraced a foreground of rounded hills covered with gi-een 

 wood, with ranges of pointed, rounded, and flattened peaks in 

 the distance, shimmering in the rays of a hot sun. 



